Music has charms to sooth a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.
William CongreveRead
Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing.
Interpretation
Life's joys come from the unpredictable nature of our experiences rather than from the comfort of security.
William Congreve's quote suggests that the excitement and happiness in life stem from the unknowns and uncertainties that we encounter. While security may provide a sense of safety, it often lacks the richness and thrill that come with anticipation and the potential for new experiences. Embracing uncertainty can lead to a more vibrant and fulfilling existence, highlighting the contrast between a mundane life of routine and the exhilarating journey of exploration.
In practice
During a motivational speech on embracing change and challenges.
Music has charms to sooth a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.
She likes herself, yet others hates, For that which in herself she prizes; And while she laughs at them, forgets She is the thing that she despises.
Women are like tricks by sleight of hand, Which, to admire, we should not understand
But say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never to have been loved. To pass our youth in dull indifference, to refuse the sweets of life because they once must leave us, is as preposterous as to wish to have been born old, because we one day must be old.
Grief walks upon the heels of pleasure; married in haste, we repent at leisure.
There is in true beauty, as in courage, something which narrow souls cannot dare to admire.
I must have something to engross my thoughts, some object in life which will fill this vacuum, and prevent this sad wearing away of the heart.
Life plays the same lovely and agonizing joke on all of us.
Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs.
For a moment, I believe, there was a stillness. A shocking realization by all things - beetles, dormice, the spiders spinning their webs in the moonlight, even the hot metal of the tracks and the wind in the trees - that Death had just shrieked past like a stinking black eagle and made off with a remarkable man.
And here am I, budding among the ruins with only sorrow to bite on, as if weeping were a seed and I the earth's only furrow.
We throw our parties; we abandon our families to live alone in Canada; we struggle to write books that do not change the world, despite our gifts and our unstinting efforts, our most extravagant hopes. We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep--it's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out of windows or drown themselves or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us, the vast majority, are slowly devoured by some disease or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself.
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